


i am my own god (and martyr);

by courageofthestars



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: F/M, Kinda Dark, Nightmares, Symptoms of PTSD, jacobs mind fuck stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21668266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courageofthestars/pseuds/courageofthestars
Summary: Rook pretends Jacobs trials don't affect her, and everyone else pretends not to notice.
Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge & Jacob Seed, Female Deputy | Judge/Jacob Seed
Kudos: 38





	i am my own god (and martyr);

**ROOK STUMBLED INTO THE WOLF'S DEN,** it took an embarrassing and surprising amount of effort for her not to go careening down the staircase. Her senses were all out of wack at the moment. She could've sworn she was spinning, her ears were ringing and her head was  _ throbbing.  _ She didn't even want to think about how five minutes ago she thought she was just outside Falls End. 

“Dep!” She distantly heard someone shout, at the same time she felt her shoulder bump into the wall. The voice sounded far away, like they were underwater or _just_ out of reach, though once she heard them call it again she focused, squeezing her eyes shut and twisting her sore head to the side. It was Eli.

She blinked  _ hard,  _ wringing her eyes shut and forcing them open, it was almost like she'd stepped into a whole new Rook; for most of her troubles were gone. She was still confused, there was still a strange, unwelcome feeling of dread low in her stomach and for some reason she could feel a quiet rage brewing beneath her chest. 

“Dep, you alright?” Eli asked. Rook, even though she still felt far from alright nodded and blinked again. She pushed herself off the wall, her free hand cradling a bruise on her shoulder she could already feel forming as she muttered another small affirmation to Eli with another nod. 

“S’fine,” She dismissed. Rook was too afraid to mention the memory that had seemingly escaped her. Refused to let Eli know that his precious Deputy was losing time. She would be okay. It was okay. 

This was why she hated the Whitetail mountains, Jacob Seed had an incredible ability to absolutely terrify her without even doing anything. She had heard enough horror stories about people up here, she’d avoided it until she _couldn't._ Until the guilt of leaving Staci up here _alone_ had ate her up and she had set off on a rampage. 

And then barely a day after she had set foot inside she was face to face with the eldest Seed. Or maybe face to abdomen. He was tall, and she was bound to a chair. And then she lost time  _ again  _ before Eli and the Whitetails had found and saved her. In fact it seemed she lost time whenever she was around Jacob. There would be a long, one sided conversation (with maybe a few smart comments), and then a strangely familiar melody, and then she woke up somewhere completely different with blood under her nails. 

It terrified her to think of what was happening, so she often tried not to. 

“Well, er, do you need anything?” Eli asked again. He seemed worried, a part of her was touched. 

She looked at Eli, trying to seem nonchalant with the way she glanced down to her hands, eyes narrowing to focus on shaking fingers. They were red. She quickly shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as she looked back up to Eli, biting her cheek as she gave a shallow nod.  _ He can't know.  _

“Um, a shower?. . . .maybe some shu-” She went to respond, though before she could finish her sentence there was a rough hand slapping down onto her shoulders from the back. Rook jerked her body away from the grasp, whirling on her heel with wild, glowering eyes as she reached down for her handgun. 

She felt ashamed to acknowledge that only a  _ part  _ of her relaxed to see it was just Wheaty. Rook let out a sigh, she blinked before pushing her shaking hands back into her pockets.  _ Don’t let them see. They’ll ask questions. _

“Jesus, Wheaty. . .” She muttered. She took a step forward and shook her head before continuing, a small smile forced on her lips. “You scared the shit outta me,” She punctuated it with a nervous laugh. 

“Shit, Dep! I’m sorry!” Wheaty quickly began, though he quieted down when Rook started to speak. It made her feel awkward, the way Wheaty treated her. Sometimes she was treated like a cool older sister, other times he was stiff and level headed as though he were trying to impress a role model. It made her uneasy. She wasn’t any better than him, and she was sure Wheaty wouldn’t like everything that was happening to her to happen to him. 

“Did you need something?” Rook gently prodded, furrowing her brows as she turned to look more to Wheaty than to Eli. She leaned back slightly on her heels, rocking gently on her feet. Wheaty looked Rook up, then down again. She could’ve sworn she saw a grimace he tried to hide. He and Eli shared a look Rook couldn’t quite decipher before he looked back to her. She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I was just gonna ask for your help with something--it’s nothing really. . .” He explained, and Rook nodded. She couldn’t help but feel like a child here, like everyone was walking on eggshells around her, but she still nodded again.

“I’m just gonna. . .go,” She said to the two, pointing a thumb over her shoulder to the direction of the bathrooms and showers. Once they both nodded she turned and set off on a speed walk, almost jog to the room, closing and locking it behind her. 

Once she took a look in the mirror Rook understood Eli’s concern and Wheaty’s face. Her hair was greasy and matted with either dirt or blood, and her face was covered in soot and other elements. Rook grimaced in the mirror, closing her eyes as she peeled her shirt off. 

She instantly wished she hadn't. Her abdomen was littered with cuts and ugly bruises, rendering her an ugly mess of purples, blues, yellows and crusted or leaking red. Rook was scared to say the least, she had no idea where she had been that could've given her the wounds. She resisted the urge to cry and she toed off her old, worn shoes, wasting no time as she shuffled out of her pants and underwear as well. 

After quickly trying to tame the rats nest that was her hair Rook flipped the water on. She jumped back initially when the water surprisingly burned her wrist. Instead she chose to wait by the edge of the shower for the water to cool to a reasonable temperature. 

She gave it a minute or so, then stepped under the water and sighed in relief at the lukewarm, relaxing feeling of the water showing over her. Rook simply rested under the water for a moment, her arms hanging loose at her sides and her head tipped downward. She watched with an upturned nose as the water ran an unruly shade of red and brown, just how long was she gone (and what had she done?)? 

A knock on the door shook her back to her senses, wiping stray drops of water out of her eyes as she yelled out a quick “Yea!?”

“It's Tammy, I’m just switching out your clothes real fast,” Was the answer she got, followed by the sound of the door opening and then closing mere seconds after. Rook sighed into the water, eternally grateful for how well the people here treated her. They seemed to actually  _ show  _ they cared, they didn't just say it. 

Rook finished her shower as quick as she could manage, being careful not to her soap in her cuts, just to scrub off the dried blood around them. There wasn't any shampoo or conditioner, likely used up weeks ago, so she settled with holding her head under the water and scrubbing her scalp almost raw until the water ran clean. 

When she got out she dried her body and dressed, wringing her hair out and deciding to let that air dry as she left the bathroom. She found herself in the lounge area, where the deep purple couch that had been claimed as her resting spot sat. Rook smiled and plopped down, laying down and easily falling into a slumber.

* * *

_ When Rook wakes the room is dark, she blinks a few times to try and adjust her eyes but nothing comes into focus. She furrows her brows and sits up on her elbows, swinging her legs off of the couch she lays on and narrowly avoiding swiping at the wooden coffee table in front of it. Rook feels tense, in every sense of the word. Still, she stands on shaky feet, arms outstretched around her even though she knows this room like the back of her hand.  _

_ She manages to hobble over to the doorway, hands smoothing along cool concrete walls until she feels the light switch and flicked it up. The room floods in unfamiliar red light. Rook grimaces at the sudden change, closing her eyes and reopening them. It smells. Bad. She holds her breath for a moment when her eyes finally open. The red light may hide it slightly but she can't mistake the splashes and dots of dark splattered on Eli's grey concrete walls. She doesn't know what it is and yet she  _ **_knows._ ** _ She doesn't know where it's from and yet she  _ **_knows_ ** _. Her heart drops with panic as her eyes widen, an emotion she's become all too familiar with these past few months.  _

_ “Eli!” Rook shouts, frozen at her spot by the wall as she cries his name again like a child lost in a grocery store (not him, not him, not him, not him-). She says it again, screaming this time as worrisome tears filled her eyes. She knows she has to look for him, but God she's terrified of what she might find.  _

_ With a deep breath and a small word of self encouragement she pushes herself off the wall. God. She hated the mountains. So much self doubt and fear, so much hatred and distrust of herself had brewed in her time here, every minute was anxiety and every step was  _ **_hell._ **

_ “Eli?” Rook calls, following the direction of the splatters through the hall until she entered the next room. It had been doubling as a storage space for ammo and food along with a small barracks, mattresses and blankets scattered in the spare spaces. When Eli has first ‘accepted’ her into the militia she had tried to insist on sleeping here with most others but Eli had refused; claiming she needed a room. They ended up compromising with the leather couch.  _

_ There's a body slumped on the far side of the room, curled with their back to her. She can barely make out their shape in the darkness, the red fluorescent lights only doing so much to assist her sight. Rook can hear distant music, notes that seem familiar yet unfamiliar all the same, and she doesn't bother to try and distinguish it. Instead she runs across the room to the body, falling to her knees with a painful jerk. Her hands knot in the fabric of their shirt, pulling them to lay on their back, halfway in her lap and halfway still on the floor. Familiar honey brown eyes stare up at her, a shaggy beard and wild hair matted with blood to match.  _

_ “Oh God-” Rook sobs, hands shaking above Eli’s body, frightened and unsure. Had she-? No, no this couldn't have been her she hadn't been near Jacob in  _ **_days_ ** _. And yet. . .a part of her knew it was.  _

_ “Oh God, Eli, no!”  _

_ She hears heavy footsteps behind her, momentary guilt lapsing as she jumped to her feet and whirled on her heel around the room. There's more bodies. Tens of them, she can make out Wheaty and Tammy amongst the bloody mess and falls to her knees. Pale, too skinny arms wrap around her waist as she drops her head low and stops resisting her urge to cry. She lets out loud, angry sobs, refusing to look up and acknowledge the bodies of her friends any more (they trusted you, they trusted you, they trusted you-).  _

_ “Good, sacrifice the weak,” _

_ The words come out of thin air almost, but they still instill the same carnal fear and blood lust they always do. She pushes herself back to her feet, vigorously shaking her head even though it's impossible anyone can see her anymore. Her hair becomes a matted flurry around her head as she backs into a wall.  _

_ “You are not a hero. You are a tool.” _

_ Rook shakes her head again, arms enclosing around her head and  _ **_squeezing_ ** _ to try and drive Jacobs voice out but it's still there like it's driven in her head. She does the only thing she can think of, Rook runs. She doesn't spare her friends corpses a second glance as she flees. She doesn't think about nineteen year old Wheaty with too much energy, or Tammy with her scarce praise or Eli with his way of treating her like she was simultaneously glass and steel.  _

_ “It was always only. . .ever. . .you,” _

_ It's like he's following her, she can feel his breath on her ear and the scratch of his red unkempt beard on her neck. Rook moves faster, slipping in a small pool of blood but otherwise managing to regain her footing. When she makes it back to where she wakes up she notices the bodies stacked sickenly neatly behind the couch and almost keels over and pukes.  _

_ Rook sprints to the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind her and dropping to her knees before emptying her stomach into the toilet. Her hair is gratefully held back by a hair tie, and it seems Jacob’s constant, disgusting words of affirmation had finally left her. She falls back on her ass, head knocking against the wall with a dull thud.  _

_ She lets out a sigh, which quickly develops into a long sob. She'd killed them. Her friends, her allies, Hope County's only hope in the Whitetails and she had slaughtered them. Rook had killed Wheaty, young and sweet Wheaty who was too young to be fighting a war. Too young to lose his life to someone he admired. She’d killed Eli, one of the only people who ever seemed to genuinely care about how  _ **_she_ ** _ was through all of this.  _

_ There's another dull thud against the wall as Rook purposely hits her head back again, wiping her eyes as she stood to her feet. She would get herself cleaned up and then at least give them all proper burials. It was the least she could do.  _

_ She forces herself to stand, stumbling over on shaking legs over to the sink and turning on the cold water. As she waits for the water to reach an ideal state she rests her head on the mirror in front of her, glaring into her own eyes (monster, monster, monster, monster-) before blinking them shut.  _

_ It feels like an eternity later when Rook finally opens her eyes, and she immediately wishes she hadn't.  _

_ Blue eyes stare back at her from behind her like those of the devil himself. They're bright and gleaming and entirely unwelcome.  _

_ “You're not real. . .” She whispers into the quiet, hoping desperately that what she hopes is a mirage of Jacob Seed can't hear her over the faucet. Rook shudders when she feels the light shuffle of the fabric of her shirt as Jacob reaches underneath her arms and out to turn off the faucet. His arms stay there when he's done, resting on the edge of the sink.  _

_ “What was that, honey?” _

_ Rook blinks and wishes Jacob away. When she opens her eyes once more he's still there. “You're. . .not. . .real,” _

_ She finally realizes how close Jacob is behind her when he scoffs and she  _ **_feels_ ** _ her hair billow from the force of it. His hands wedge underneath hers, tightly gripping her wrist and pulling it up in front of her face. Her hands are slick and red, her heart drops when she remembers how common it is. He turns her hand over, and this time she focuses on his.  _

_ Scars litter the skin but she's already familiar with those. These hands had held her throat, her jacket, her face and her friends far too many times for them to be strangers. They're surprisingly lithe and nimble, one of the only inklings Rook ever received to understand Jacob was not the mindless brute everyone made him out to be. He was smart; as much as she hated him she had to admit he was likely one of the smartest people she knew. And that terrified her. _

_ “I'm as real as you are,” He says back to her, taking no care to how tight his grip was as she felt her hands begin to tingle. God, how she wanted to disappear.  _

_ “Leave me alone,”  _

_ “I can't do that, Soldier,” _

_ Of course not. Because if he left her alone she would have a chance to grieve properly. If he left her alone she could pick up what remained of her life and plan an escape from Hope County. He couldn't torture her if he left her alone, it was as if he had nothing better to do with his life. And you would think he would.  _

_ “You made me kill him,” She weakly murmurs, eyes fluttering down to the sink. The bowl was stained red, an oddity considering she had just run the water.  _

_ “Palmer was weak, you are not. He lost that fight as soon as he tried to stop you,”  _

_ It was no excuse! Rook being able to overpower Eli was no justification to her forced murder of him, and hell, Jacob didn't even have the dignity to deny he had orchestrated it. “He was good,” _

_ “And you, Deputy. . .?” Jacob asked, his arms moving to tighten around her midsection like a boa constrictor. It's unclear to Rook if she's crying because of her friend or crying because of Jacobs guise of a hug. She wrings her eyes shut as she feels his hands move up, up,  _ **_up_ ** _ and  _ **_around._ ** _ One large, scarred palm easily engulfs her throat and lightly squeezes.  _

_ Rook sighs, she knows the truth to his question and she knows what he wants her to say, there's even a thin grey line where the two overlap. But she already knows what she is going to say.  _

_ “I am not,”  _

_ She hears Jacob scoff behind her, his hand smoothing over the expanse of her neck to grip her shoulder. She shudders when he leans in close, his head almost knocking against hers. “No, Lamb. You're not. But. . .that’s okay. The weak have their purpose. . .” _

_ Salty tears run down Rooks cheeks in persistent, silent streams. She wants to fall and just  _ **_sob_ ** _ but she knows to do that would not only let Jacob win, it would also require a lot more physical contact with him than she'd like. She won't cry. Not here, not for him.  _

_ “I'm not a good person, Jacob, you're right. . .” Rook whispers again, tilting her head ever so slightly to peer at his haunting blue eyes in the bathroom mirror. Her own are an unfamiliar, shocking and unsettling crimson. Like the light that hangs over them, or Eli's blood crusted under her nails. Like the rage brewing deep in her bones. “. . .and neither are you,” And with that, she turns and  _ **_pounces_ ** _.  _

_ Her nails dig into the scarred flesh of Jacobs neck, taking pride in the groan of pain he releases as she simultaneously kicks him in the shins. He's much taller than her, so getting any real damage is going to be a challenge on its own but God does she accept.  _

_ She lets her other hand take purchase in his jacket, crying out when he pushes his own hands to dig angrily into the skin of her neck. Rook copies the move, prying her thumb into his adam's apple and smirking with glee when he coughs.  _

_ Jacob reels his head back, head butting Rook with all his might. She gasps in pain and sees stars, abruptly losing her grip on Jacob and falling to her ass on the ground. It’s his turn to smile, shaking his head at her like he would a child before kicking her hard in the chest when she tries to push herself back up. _

_ Her head smacks into the concrete floor of Eli’s bathroom and she sees stars again, a coppery, metallic taste flooding her mouth as her teeth slam on her tongue. She tilts her head over and spits the blood with a grimace. _

_ She moves again but he moves faster, dropping a knee on her chest that has her wheezing out her breath with wide, almost bulging eyes. He still towers over her like this, a knee on her chest to keep her down while the other is on the floor. Rook thrashes beneath him, kicking her legs up and down in hopes of hitting his head while trying to push his leg off of her. _

_ The whole time he just watches her, an arm nonchalantly resting on his leg like she’s  _ **_nothing_ ** _ beneath him. Maybe she is.  _

_ She bares her teeth and snarls, glaring into his eyes as she throws a hand up and smacks him hard across the face. He looks dumbfounded for a moment and she relishes in the small victory that is a series of three claw marks down his cheek, pushing angry breaths through her blood stained teeth before she smiles. _

_ In turn he glares and his free hand drifts to his side. He pulls his candy red 1911 from the holster at his thigh and sighs. Rooks heart drops, and she rapidly begins to shake her head and scream. _

_ “No! No, no, Jacob! Jacob, Jacob, Jacob! I’m sorry! Please, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, Jacob, ple-” _

_ She’s silenced when he presses the bright steel to her chest, the cold metal burning into the flesh between her breasts through her shirt. Rooks eyes are welled with absentminded tears, she barely even notices them falling. _

_ Jacob leans forward, his breath wafting hot across her face. “Disappointing,” He snarls and God, Rook shouldn’t feel so bad about disappointing him but she  _ **_does._ **

_ He pulls the trigger. _

* * *

Rook wakes  _ screaming,  _ one hand pushing herself up while the other claws desperately at her chest over Nick’s flannel, expecting a gunshot wound but instead finding the raw, angry skin labeled  **_WRATH_ ** . She internally curses John Seed as her head whips around her surroundings. She’s still in the Wolf’s Den, on the burgundy leather couch she’d claimed as her own and Wheaty is staring at her with wide eyes and outstretched hands next to the couch.

Oh.

_ Oh. _

“Whe. . .Wheaty,” She says quietly, her ears and cheeks going red as she looked anywhere  _ but  _ at the teen. His brown eyes are wide and if she focuses, she swears they're glistening. Rook wants to cry too. She wants to do a number of things right now, particularly slither down and disappear into the couch.  _ Especially  _ when Eli comes running into the room, his 1911 clutched in hand. 

Eli visibly relaxes when he sees that there's no  _ real  _ danger in the room, setting the gun on the nearby table with a loud thud that has Rook flinching. But seeing him okay, brown eyes dull and tired but alive, made her heart soar. They were okay. It was just a dream, a terrible one at that, but they were okay. 

“I'm sorry,” She weakly mutters in their direction, looking down at her shaking hands as Eli moved to stand behind Wheaty. He’d always seemed like a father to the young man, protective and supportive. 

She knows he moves slowly when Eli moves from standing behind Wheaty, but he seems to move as she blinks, until she feels the couch dip beside her. Rook swallows, eyes flickering over to Eli then back to the floor. In the corner of her eye she sees Eli jerk his head, and subsequently, Wheaty leaves without protest.

“I think I should leave. . .” Rook murmurs in the new silence, her voice raw and quiet. She feels Eli place a warm hand on her back, his head tilting down to hear her better. Rook continues, the nightmarish image of Eli’s corpse repeating back to her, Jacob in the bathroom, the gun on her chest, the  _ need  _ to please. “I don’t think. . .I don’t think you guys are safe anymore-with me around-I mean,”

She looks up, hair dropping in front of her eyes as she stares up at Eli, who was clearly having trouble processing her proclamation. Rook’s upper lip quivers, she doesn’t want to cry, but for some reason she’s finding it hard not to.

“That’s not happening,” Is all Eli answers with. “You’re family, Rook, we take care of our own, no matter what,”

She knows she should tell him about Jacob, about the poisonous melody and carnal rage brewing inside her. Rook knows she should tell Eli about the time she’s lost, the blood on her hands. But when she looks up into Eli’s trusting, hopeful brown eyes, she simply  _ can’t _ .

“Okay,” She weakly murmurs.

Eli nods and stands up, looking down at her, seemingly staring a hole into her chest. She follows his eyes and swallows.

She’d never shown anyone what John Seed had done to her, the ugly mess he’d carved into her chest what seemed like a lifetime ago. The only person who’d seen it was Nick, and she’d made him swear not to tell anyone.

The scar was ugly, a deep pit in her soul that allowed everything to fester. Her hatred, her guilt. The joy she’d felt beating John half to death in the forest, the tears running down her cheeks as she screamed. The heartbreak she’d felt when John accused her of not caring about the people here, and then the sorrow when his Chosen saved him from her and he got to  _ live.  _ **_WRATH_ ** was an ugly mark indeed. And now she would go from hiding her pain from John from society, to using to hide her pain from Jacob. 

After looking at it once more Rook came to realize she’d scratched the healing wound raw, and almost bloody, in her nightmare. She hesitantly adjusted the red and black flannel to cover it, rebuttoning a few that’d come undone in the mess. 

Eli cleared his throat, crossing his arms and looking away from the wound. “You might want to get that cleaned up,” He suggested, and she nodded.

Once Eli finally left Rook let out a long sigh, slouching back into the leather and allowing her eyes to flutter closed. She inwardly promised herself that she would look at her chest in the morning, along with plead with Eli not to mention it to anyone, before falling back to sleep. 


End file.
